US FDA "Violating First Amendment"

The Washington legal Foundation's Health Care Project has run a full-page ad in the New York Times blaming the US Food and Drug Administration for US health care problems, and accusing it of violating the constitutional First Amendment right of free speech.

"because of the FDA, patients and their doctors don't receive truthful information about hundreds of medical products that have been approved by the FDA as safe and effective," it says. And using aspirin as an example, it accuses the FDA of censoring information because it is "burdened with a heavy-handed bureaucracy that simply cannot keep up with advances in the medical profession." Most people do not know that aspirin is clinically proven to reduce the risk of heart attack and plays an important role in preventing colorectal cancer, the ad says, adding: "other examples of FDA censorship are everywhere - all involving drugs already approved by the FDA - including about 60% of established drug therapies to fight cancer."

The reason for its suppression of information about almost all childhood cancer treatments is that FDA officials are "behind the medical learning curve;" only some doctors know these latest developments but "many anguished parents and doctors in outlying, smaller hospitals are unecessarily disadvantaged."